Who are the men and women who participated in May 1968? Why, and how, did their individual trajectories make it into the history books? Are they still affected by those events today? What was the impact of their activism on their children?

In order to answer these questions, Julie Pagis conducted a vast study on the life trajectories of 'ordinary' participants in the May 1968 protests, combining statistical analyses with personal narratives from both the protestors and their children.

Distancing herself from the clichéd view which argues that members of the ‘May 1968 generation’ became opportunists, with many now having become ‘liberal libertarians’ and holding positions of power in politics, the media and the literary world, Pagis painstakingly examines the diverse profiles of the men and women who participated in the events of May 1968, before illustrating the multiple effects that this participation has had on their personal, professional and family lives, as well as their activist careers.

Analysing the roots of participation, the familial transmission of activism and various post-68 personal transformations, Pagis seeks to restore multiple different interpretations to the events of May 1968 that have largely been buried over the course of the movement’s decennial celebrations.

Julie Pagis, the daughter of neo-rural farmers, a former biology student at the École normale supérieure, is now a researcher at the CNRS in political sociology. She is likewise a member of the Centre d’études et de recherches administratives, politiques et sociales (CERAPS - Centre for administrative, political and social studies and research) at the Université Lille-2 and affiliated with the ‘Enquêtes, terrains, théories’ [Studies, terrains, theories] research unit at the Centre Maurice-Halbwachs (ENS-EHESS).